Missouri Judicial System Broken?
Governor Greitens came down pretty hard on trial lawyers last week in his State of the State speech: Missouri
attracts the “nastiest lawyers,” “our judicial system is broken,” and the time is up “for the trial lawyers who have
broken it.”
St. Louis recently ranked as #1 on The American Tort Reform Association’s annual list of “Judicial Hellholes.” We got this ranking because of three jury
verdicts in talcum powder cases totaling $197 million dollars. These are pretty consistent verdicts and the evidence
about the defendant’s conduct was pretty damning.
But that’s still a lot of money and can be seen as irresponsible. Insurance companies and big corporations use
these verdicts to sway the public against our legal system and the 7th Amendment. ATRA’s members are Fortune
500 companies like AIG, General Electric, Geico, Dow, and others. For more about the use of verdicts to affect
politics, our legal system, and tort reform. The movie Hot Coffee and its website well discuss this issue.
To the contrary, I and the other lawyers I know don’t look on Missouri’s judicial system as broken or out of whack.
We
have pretty balanced judges and juries who rule fairly. Wholesale legal changes such as changing the
Missouri plan for selecting judges, imposing caps on recovery or other permanent changes seems arbitrary and
unwarranted to address three verdicts in a distinct legal battle.
Those verdicts do not inform anyone about my cases or clients. I am not a nasty lawyer, but one who takes his oath
and profession seriously and seeks daily to advance it. Insurers and corporations are not disadvantaged by our
judicial system – to the contrary, it’s the only place an individual can combat them.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch had a great article discussing how verdicts can correct injustices to ordinary citizens.
There are many examples of how caps or other tort reform proposals would hurt the future injured (who don’t have
much of a political voice).
Here’s a link to a blog last year of my top 10 ironies of tort reform. Here’s three:
1)
Legislators try to wreck your 7th amendment right to a jury trial, while zealously protecting your 2nd amendment
right to bear arms. Both are important and should be protected.
2)
Elected
officials who try to pass tort reform must believe that voters who are smart enough to elect their
representatives are not smart enough to sit on juries and evaluate cases competently.
3)
Jury verdicts are not going up or out of control, rather insurance
companies lose money on stock investments and other speculation. But the legislature pushes this subject
over and over again – an insult to the facts and us citizens.
Gary Burger
Founder | Injury Attorney
Gary Burger has dedicated his career to standing up against bullies. The founder and principal attorney of Burger Law | St. Louis Personal Injury Lawyer has helped hundreds of Missouri and Illinois individuals and families recover th …
Years of experience: 30 years
Location: St. Louis, MO
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